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I was treated to this interesting sauce at lunch time recently at one of the restaurants here in our office building. You can see the obligatory dish of Kimchi on the left...

Today started off okay, until I went to the dentist office. I was supposed to have a final imprint of my teeth for the permanent bridge/crown. What I didn't realize that they were going to do some additional drilling and preparation of the two teeth which will hold the bridge. That in itself wasn't a problem, but what was a bit odd was the novocaine anesthetic. He told me that one of these teeth (canine tooth) has really deep roots, and he had to give me a lot of the medicine, and he gave it very deep into my gum. [Syringe image shamelessly borrowed from this NYTimes article]



The first odd thing was as he gave the first shot, I had a sudden but quick HOT sensation at one spot on my face. That went away, but just as he was about to start work on the teeth, I started feeling very light-headed and dizzy and hot. I told them to stop, and give me a few minutes rest. They brought in a small fan, which helped with the sweating somewhat. After a short break, I didn't feel much better, but told them to go ahead anyway. The procedure went well, with no problem. Nothing out of the ordinary, except that I felt dizzy the whole time. After about 1 hour, everything was done. The impression was made, my temporary bridge was re-installed and I was released until next week.

But for the rest of the day, I was completely worthless at doing work. I could not concentrate on anything more complicated than checking email. I tried some serious engineering work, and just had to give up. I did a few administrative things, and finally gave up around 5pm.

Got home, and decided to cook some chicken breast. I figured cooking wouldn't require too much deep thought. Surprisingly, what I prepared came out pretty good. I thawed out one of my frozen chicken breasts from Costco in the microwave, and peeled some potatoes to boil and mash. After a couple cycles of thawing the chicken breast, I decided to try the "combination" feature of my combination oven. If there is a detailed way to control the combi mode of operation, I haven't found it. Instead, there are a few choices, such as C-1, C-2, C-3, etc. I found one labeled for chicken legs, and used that. ( Chicken legs, chicken breasts, at least it was the same animal. ) Then the oven wanted to know how many kilograms my chicken was. I guessed at 1/2 Kg, then pressed start. The time popped up 20 something minutes, and I fired it up.

Then I decided to make something to put on the chicken - mixed up a big spoon of garlic, some butter, and a Japanese rice seasoning that my Hawaiian friends introduced me to for use on fish. ( I know, chicken, fish, but at least both animals live in the ocean... ) In Korea this product is called 친구밥, literally "rice friend". I brushed this mixture on the chicken and went on preparing the mashed potatoes and mixed frozen vegetables (also a Costco purchase).



This was almost as good as something I would get in a restaurant! And pretty easy to prepare, also. The combination mode worked really well. I checked the chicken breast with my meat thermometer when it was done, and the temperature was at the correct value. The outer surface was a little crispy with the garlic crust, and the inside was moist. I'm not sure how much cooking time was saved using the combination mode versus using the ordinary oven mode. I would guess it only saved about 10 or 15 minutes. Regardless of the cooking time, I'm proud of myself. I'll make this again.

And as I write this, my dizziness has almost subsited. I should say I'm very happy with this dentist, despite this odd reaction. The Stumbling Mother says I'm developing an allergy to the -caine family of anesthetics, like she has. I hope not. Next week they will install the permanent bridge (fortunately no anesthetic is involved with that procedure), and that will end this particular dental experience.

I was listening to some Canadian friends describe the hotel breakfast buffet at their vacation in the Philippines. Suddenly we realized there weren't any pancake restaurants in Seoul (feel free to correct me if anyone knows of any). And since then I've been craving pancakes. Turns out I had all the indgreients except syrup. I quick trip to the store solved that problem last night, and this morning I made a pancake and bacon breakfast. The pancakes were good, although I had the heat a little too high. The maple syrup I found comes from Vermont, but I'll bet the Canadians only eat maple syrup from their homeland (which makes 80% of the world's supply of maple syrup).

A few random observations from 2 weeks of on and off summer Olympic watching from Seoul.

This ain't my father's handball

When I was a kid, I was introduced to racquetball and handball at the place where my Father worked. To me, handball is just like racquetball, except played with a slightly smaller ball (not unlike a squash ball) and the players just use their hands, not racquets (they do wear padded gloves as I recall). I turn on the Olympic games to see a handball game one evening, and they're not playing in a small room. They're playing on an indoor field (looked like wet Astroturf). It was kind of like soccer, but using a ball in your hands instead of kicking. Accoring to Wikipedia, this Handball is played in Europe (and I presume Asia, since there were several Asian Handball teams on TV). The handball I know is called - please sit down for this - American Handball. This reminds me of the Soccer / Football / American Football name confusion. Can't we at least agree on the names of the games???

They're playing hockey on GRASS!

I need to consult my Canadian friends about this, but one night I turned on the TV and they were playing Hockey on grass! Field Hockey it seems. I guess this is poor-man's hockey? Or perhaps "warm-weather" hockey? The stick looked different from regular ice hockey, and come to think of it, maybe it was THIS sport that looked to be played on wet Astroturf.

Game coverage in a foreign country

I really enjoyed watching the games from another country. I get to see new (to me) sports that aren't popular in the USA, which was quite interesting.

Olympics + HD = Good Match

Despite my Korean satellite service advertising they would be covering the 2008 Olympic games on their HD channel, I never once saw a single event. However, I can pick up most of the over-the-air HD broadcasts. I let me say, HD video is a great match for sporting events. The only slight problem is that usually all the broadcasters would be covering the same event, so if you wanted HD quality, you were stuck with one sport. My other method was watching NBC's coverage of the Olympics using my USA Sling Box installed at The Stumbling Parents home. That was a big contrast between internet video and HD. But at least I could understand the narration of the announcers over the NBC station. They also had a great website devoted to the games, the only problem for me is that all video (live and replays) was blocked for anyone outside the USA.

Archery; how on Earth do they even hit the target?

Archery is very popular here in Korea. Their archery teams (mens and womens) have long winning streaks at the Olympics, as do their individual archers. As you can imagine, I saw a lot of archery. I suddenly gained a huge admiration for the sport when I saw a high speed camera played back in slow motion. When the arrow leaves the bow, it isn't straight. It is like a rubber snake! Oscillating back and forth. I can't imainge how they can hit anything, especially when you also consider the lofted trajectory the arrow follows.

Absent Athlete?

Where was Mark Spitz? He was snubbed?? What's this about? There must be more to this story. I wanna know more... Does everyone remember this famous poster? I think ever girl had it hanging on the wall that year

Or as we spell it in the USA, Ramen. Actually, I think what we ordinarily buy in the states as Ramen is a Japanese product. The Korean product, Ramyun, is basically the same food modified to suit Korean tastes. For all I know the Chinese have the same dish as well. I was watching some Olympic coverage tonight from home, and decided to prepare some Ramyun. As I've posted before, my Korean friends have repeatedly warned me just how bad a food Ramyun is, and not to eat it often. While all of it is probably not the best food, I think they are particularly concerned about the "instant" style that is sold in all the convenience stores (usually in a styrofoam or thick cardboard package). I've heeded the warning about Ramyon so well, the small 5-pack I have in the kitchen is past the expiration date by 4 months! Given that there's nothing really to go bad in the package, I ate it anyway.

I had been planning to make SPAM Ramyun (thus making it even more unhealthy), and decided to make another variety in addition - cheese Ramyun. Here are the simple steps to making a delicious fusion Cheese-SPAM-Ramyun dish.

Boil the water, get out the Ramyon package:


Prepare the extra ingredients. You're supposed to use green onions, but all I had was regular onion (tasted pretty good to me). You're supposed to only use 1 egg, but I used 3. I didn't have cheddar cheese, so I used some pepper-cheese instead.


Put the noodles and spice packets into the boiling water:


When it's all boiled for 4 minutes,


Add the extra and boil a couple more minutes.


Serve and eat:


This could serve two people, or three thin people. Even The (Large) Stumbler couldn't eat all this, and had some left over for breakfast.

EDIT: Nothing goes better after a Ramyun dinner than a chilled Choco-Pie (see earlier post here).

Our friend from a few years ago, SC, had moved to Busan a few years ago, opening a successful Curry Restaurant. SC used to work with us, and served as a part-time travel guide during a family visit back in 2005. He came to Seoul this month to visit, so we all got together Friday night for dinner and to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympics at a sports bar.



(You will notice SC is wearing a Curry-colored shirt, which we teased him about all night). Another reason for our gathering that night was another friend JI was departing for a week long vacation in Italy. JI is the fuzzy guy on the right (these photos were taken with the cell phone camera, which doesn't have the best quality optics)



The opening ceremonies were really great. I ended up seeing the whole program in about three sittings. We watched most of the entertainment portion Friday night live. Then Saturday morning, I was able to see the parade of countries portion on NBC using my Slingbox. Then Saturday night I caught a repeat of the entertainment portion on local Korean broadcast. At the sports bar, you couldn't hear any audio, so I got a little bit more out of it the second time around.

Sunday is my wash day, but today was special. After some confusion at the store, I finally found an 8 meter long clothesline which I can temporarily stretch across my apartment. So today I washed my blankets (Korean-style sheets), and now my place looks like a tent.